How to count 100 hours
Ever since the campaign season when Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi kept promising action on the Democrats agenda in “the first 100 hours” of the new Congress, though nobody could or would define how that timetable would be counted. There was amusing speculation, but the press fell into a ‘wait and see’ attitude.
Well here we are, and they’re still wondering.
The clock is ticking for House Democrats, but it’s hard to tell what time it is.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was touting a plan to push six bills through a Democratic House in 100 hours or less as early as June of last year. She’s reached the halfway point – in fewer than 20 hours, according to her count.
But just as the official clock for a basketball or football game stops for time-outs and commercial breaks, Democrats aren’t counting the minutes spent on business unrelated to those six designated bills.
So while the House has been in session for almost 48 hours since the 110th Congress was sworn in Jan. 4, the clock on Pelosi’s Web site says only 17 hours 48 minutes have elapsed.
“We’re just counting the legislative hours,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill explained.
Oh, that’s convenient, and creative.
Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the clock – no matter how time is kept – is irrelevant.
“The clock is just a distraction to the hypocrisy they’ve exhibited and continued to exhibit in the first 100 hours,” Kennedy said, referring to House Democrats’ refusal to allow the GOP minority a chance to offer amendments or have any role in writing the bills. Democrats had leveled the same criticism that Republicans, then in the majority, denied them those opportunities.
So the political antics continue. But at least they all agree on one priority.
No time was run off on either clock Monday, when many lawmakers attended the BCS championship football game in Arizona between Ohio State and Florida.
Hard to say whether the ‘gentle Congress people’ from Ohio, and other Buckeye fans, would rather have been doing business as usual than suffering through that defeat. It was a good lesson for everyone — in sports, politics and life — to focus on what’s in front of you at the moment (moving toward the goal, one play at a time), and do what you do with excellence.
